Lebanon announced today, Thursday, that it has registered the first case of cholera since 1993.
The case was registered on 5 October in the rural governorate of Akkar in the north of the country. According to the National News Agency, the cholera patient is being treated and his condition is stable.
For its part, the Lebanese Ministry of Health said that a crisis cell has been set up that includes experts and specialists to respond to the cholera epidemic and follow developments on a daily basis.
For his part, Lebanese Health Minister Firas Al-Abyad told Reuters that the cholera case recorded in Akkar, the poorest region of Lebanon, is very likely the result of an outbreak in a Syrian border area.
Cholera usually appears in residential areas that suffer from a shortage of drinking water or a lack of sewage systems. It is often caused by consuming contaminated food or water and leads to diarrhea and vomiting.
The announcement of the first infection in Lebanon arrives, while at least 39 people have died cholera, which is spreadingIn Syria since last month, according to a new report from the Ministry of Health, at a time when the World Health Organization has warned of a “worrying” worsening of the situation.
And the Syrian Ministry of Health reported on Tuesday that the cumulative total number of confirmed infections reached 594.distributed in 11 provinces Of the country’s 14 total, the largest number is in the Aleppo Governorate (north).
Cholera test kit in a camp for displaced people in Idlib
and registered The ministry has 39 dead, 34 of them are in Aleppo, explaining that “most of the deaths are caused by the delay in seeing an early doctor or by people suffering from chronic diseases”.
It was unclear whether the ministry’s statistics included injuries and deaths in areas beyond the government’s control.
In Geneva, the director general of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, told reporters on Wednesday: “In Syria, more than ten thousand suspected cases of cholera have been reported in the last six weeks.”
And the World Health Organization warned on Tuesday that the situation “is worsening alarmingly in the governorates” where the disease has spread and “infections are spreading to new areas.”
